Norveld Case Studies

1: Budget and Planning Discovery

Provided recommendations to improve budget processes at a university.

The problem

Because of performance issues and lack of needed functionality of the university’s budget system, academic and administrative units were developing or acquiring individual solutions and shadow systems, leading to disparate processes and increased costs.

The challenge

While sharing some common practices, each unit creates and reports on its budget to meet its specific requirements, which don’t always meet the needs of the central budget office. Because of this and the issues with the budget tool, the units faced challenges, including:

Nonalignment of budget planning timelines for units and the central budget office
Cumbersome procedures in the budget tool
Little incentive for units to work together to solve common problems

These and other challenges faced by the unit budget directors and their staffs required increased time and effort to do their jobs, causing frustration and low morale.

The approach

We conducted a discovery initiative over three months that included the following tasks:

Interviewed a subset of budget directors to identify unit processes and needs
Engaged a larger working group to provide additional feedback and verification
Analyzed data and compiled findings

The results

We identified over 50 pain points relating to the poor performance and lack of expected functionality of the budget tool; lifecycle timing issues that affected reporting; and lack of communication, training, and documentation. Here is a summary of the recommendations:

Improve budget tool usability with add-ins and better documentation and training
Improve communication and create a common terminology
Improve alignment of the unit and central budget office processes and timelines

Testimonial

“The recommendations we got from Norveld’s discovery project for our complex budgeting process were so valuable that they are now our guidebook for simplifying procedures, streamlining processes, and adding simple features that will add great value to our system without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Conclusion

This case study demonstrates the importance of thoroughly understanding the client’s needs and issues preventing users and stakeholders from realizing the full value of their investment.

2: Project Selection

Improved project selection for a process improvement team of a regional municipality resulting in accountability, transparency, and high-value projects.

The problem

The team managed a project portfolio that did not bring much value to the municipality. There was no process for assessing the value of submitted projects.

The challenge

Project selection could be difficult due to organizational politics, “salesmanship,” self-interest, and other negative influences affecting which projects were selected, resulting in

Projects that were not always aligned with the municipality’s strategy
Pet projects that brought value to an individual, but not necessarily to the organization
Resources that were stretched thin, forcing people to work long hours

The approach

Our customized approach included these activities:

Identified criteria to assess value, challenges, and priorities from strategic documents
Interviewed and worked with the team to verify the scoring criteria
Customized proprietary assessment tool and dashboard with the scoring criteria
Assessed the current projects against the scoring criteria

The results

Most of the legacy projects scored low to moderate on the value (alignment to strategy) axis of the dashboard, with only one high-value project.

After the projects were completed, the team loaded new projects into the tool as they were submitted for the next year. They rejected low-value and extremely difficult projects and only accepted high-value projects that aligned best with the municipality’s strategy.

The new projects selected with the scoring criteria scored moderate to high on the value axis, reflecting a significant improvement from the previous portfolio.

Testimonial

“The scoring criteria produced revealing results that only could have been achieved by following Norveld’s process, which we found to be straight-forward and logical.”

Conclusion

Our proprietary methodology and assessment tool allowed the team to create a defensible business case for projects that produced the highest value on ROI. The added

transparency of the dashboard ensured the team directed its efforts and resources to best serve the residents of the region and to accurately reflect the regional council’s business plan.

3: Financial System Implementation Planning

Provided critical planning for implementing a new financial system into statewide offices.

The problem

The organization was replacing an outdated financial system, having canceled a previous attempt with a system that was not a good fit. Fallout from the canceled project and other organizational issues caused some resistance to the project from stakeholders:

Many felt they had limited involvement in the selection process.
Many questioned the need to replace the existing system in the first place.

The challenge

There were significant differences in the experience of people who would be using the new system. For example, finance people in large offices were full-time and had college degrees, and they looked forward to working on the new system. Those in smaller offices were part-time and had little or no academic training. They felt more threatened by the new system.

The approach

We were engaged to provide project planning and to address resistance and other relevant issues. We reported to a core team and performed the following activities:

Elicited relevant information from the core team to set and manage expectations
Interviewed a subset of stakeholders to elicit concerns and to determine the types of communication all stakeholders would need during the project
Built the WBS for client tasks and identified relevant risks

The solution

We developed three planning documents for the core team to use throughout the project:

Extensive communication plan with stakeholder analysis, detailed stakeholder-topic matrix, and description of content deliverables including medium and delivery
Detailed risk management plan
Flexible project plan

The results

The planning documents enabled the implementation to be completed successfully, and the new system was well received by stakeholders.

Testimonial

“The communication plan was especially useful to us in preparing and delivering the right content at the right time. The stakeholders were on board and appreciated knowing how to migrate to the new system without a lot of hassle and downtime.”

Conclusion

Project planning, especially for communication and risk, helps a project start on the right track and deliver results that meet all stakeholders’ expectations.